Last week, the neck wood arrived, together with a truss rod and a 0,5 mm saw for cutting the fret slots. The rosewood fingerboard looks gorgeous, although I have to plane it down from 9 to 6 mm. And then the saw: it’s second hand, I’m sure of that. It looks like it has served for a few years already and I couldn’t even cut my finger with it! (That’s safe, I know, but rosewood is rather tough…) So it will go back and I have to look for another one.

I also had a problem with the neck blank I ordered. It wasn’t straight. If I put it on the table, the ends of the blank hovered almost 2 mm above the table. Since I don’t have a jointer or planer, I couldn’t do it myself (or maybe with a block plane, but I doubt the result would be any better), so I Googled a bit and found a very nice local furniture / cabinet maker (Huub de Krom Meubelmakerij) who was willing to plane the blank for me. Now it’s perfectly flat and about the right thickness. Many thanks to Huub de Krom!

So it’s time to start working on the neck. First of all, I set up a jig to plane the fingerboard with my router and routed it to a thickness of almost 7 mm. It wasn’t flat and without a flat surface to start with, I can’t get the fret slots right. Then, I sanded it by hand for over an hour and it came out beautiful. I like the grain very much!

Then, I started working on the neck blank, since I couldn’t start cutting the fret slots. I routed the sides perfectly perpendicular to the top and bottom of the blank and also parallel to each other. This will help getting the scarf joint nice and straight. Having this done, I made a jig for the scarf joint. I am going to cut it by hand and the jig will assure the cut is straight and exactly 13 degrees (that’s where I am aiming for). While the glue of the jig is drying, I will look if I can make a figured maple veneer for the headstock out of the left overs from the body top.

[Some time later that day…]

I found I nice piece of figured maple that matches the body top perfectly! So I reused the jig from the fingerboard and planed it down to 2 mm thick. Then I cut it with the fretsaw (the one with the frame, not the one to cut fret slots) and sanded it smooth. I now have a wonderful piece of veneer! Can’t wait to see it on the headstock!